Mavis Staples: ‘I often think what would have happened if I’d married Dylan’

Her raw, rasping voice made the Staple Singers a household name in the 50s and 60s and icons of the civil rights movement. She talks about the time she met David Bowie, her relationship with Bob Dylan and her love of Pharrell Williams’s HappySixty years ago, before rock’n’roll had ignited, a 16-year-old took the lead on a huge-selling hit. “Well, well, well, Lord,” she sang, “they tell me I got a home beyond the skies.” Her voice sounded years older than